DEFENSEMEN

Brenden Dillon is an absolute monster, folks. A rookie should not be able to handle the type of minutes that he did, as effectively as he did. I had him 4th on my personal (imaginary, since I never actually wrote it up nor do I have a real one) ballot for Rookie of the Year.

Those feelings are still intact, as Brendan and I are going steady. There are a couple of things to note about him at this time:

a) The Stars have needed more from him this season, with injuries to Trevor Daley and Stephane Robidas on the back end, and he has stepped up for them. As some fantasy owners are (sadly) aware of, it appears that he has made a concerted effort to stay out of the penalty box and on the ice. His penalties taken/60 rate has dropped all the way from 1.1 to 0.4, making him a more effective real-life hockey player.

b) He and Alex Goligoski appear to have mutually benefited from playing together. Since Robidas, Dillon’s partner last season, was injured, he and Goligoski have played together at 5v5 for a grand total of 246:26. In that time, the Stars have controlled 53.5 percent of all attempted shots and 57.1 percent of all goals scored. That’s a drastic improvement for each player from their previous partners, so maybe the Stars have stumbled into something with this pairing.

Here in Vancouver, a common sentiment about WHL players is, “how could they let him pass through their backyard without getting him for themselves?" Milan Lucic and Brendan Gallagher are two of the most typical targets, but maybe attention should shift to Dillon, who the Stars signed as an undrafted free agent (of course, as Jeff Angus mentions in his chat with Dillon, it was impossible to predict the growth spurt that he’d eventually have). Still … oh, what could’ve been.

Niklas Hjalmarsson, Chicago Blackhawks: It seemed like Doug Wilson and the Sharks pulled a fast one when they forced Chicago’s hand in signing Hjalmarsson to a four-year, $14 million deal back in 2010. I thought Hjalmarsson was overrated, and someone that we wouldn’t think twice about if not for the team he was playing for. For a few years, that may have been correct.

But then something changed last season, as Joel Quenneville and the Blackhawks staff decided to make Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya the team’s shutdown pairing, feeding them all of the heavy minutes. This, in turn, freed up Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook to play fewer (and easier) minutes in the regular season, keeping them fresh for an extended playoff run. It worked like a charm, obviously, as Keith and Seabrook didn’t wear down as they had in years past, and the Blackhawks won the Cup. The team rewarded Hjalmarsson with a five-year contract extension and, once again, it’s looking like a pretty good deal for Chicago.

Hjalmarsson is just behind Keith for the team lead in even-strength time on ice/game (and ahead of Seabrook), and plays by far the most on the penalty kill. He’s currently sporting a career-high average time on ice, and has already set a new personal best for points (with 22, and 31 games yet to play). He’ll never get the glory because of the other guys on the team, but its the enabler role which he fills so admirably that allows the others to shine.

Jake Muzzin, Los Angeles Kings:Craig Custance put together a fine piece earlier this week, when he went in on the Muzzin/Drew Doughty pairing. Here’s the money quote from it (it’s insider, by the way):

Kings defenseman Jake Muzzin is a surprising member of the advanced stat all-stars. When he’s on the ice at even strength, 61.1 percent of all shot attempts are at the opposing goalie — a number topped only by teammate Justin Williams. There’s not another defenseman in the league over 60 percent. According to behindthenet.ca, his Corsi rating is 23.88 — again the tops among defensemen who have played at least 20 games this season.

Our buddy Robert P. put together a very telling graphic of how Doughty has fared with his various defensive partners since ’06, and it’s clear at first glance that he and Muzzin do have a *shudders* “chemistry” of sorts. That’s a crutch phrase, but there may be no other way to describe it. Doughty is an outstanding player, and pretty clearly one of the five best defensemen in the league, but having Muzzin next to him back there seems to take him to another level. Custance tries to explain the dynamic himself:

When Doughty and Muzzin get the puck, their ability to make plays and make the right decisions helps drive play in the right direction. We know about Doughty’s impressive skill, but at times Muzzin’s size, strength and ability to move pucks with deception in his game go unappreciated.

Makes sense. Whatever is happening, it’s quite clear that Muzzin is doing something right, even if most of it has to do with saddling up next to a great player. I’m not sure he’ll be complaining about it 10-12 years from now when he looks back at the career he carved out for himself.

T.J. Brodie, Calgary Flames: Brodie, like his teammate Mikael Backlund, is excelling despite the carnage surrounding him. He starts less than 40 percent of his shifts on the offensive zone, he plays against the best competition the other team has to offer on a nightly basis and he logs a ton of minutes. Through all of this, he has managed a 7.8 Corsi Relative. He has also managed to form a beautiful partnership with Mark Giordano, as the two control 53.8 percent of all shot attempts when on the ice together.

There aren’t too many things to get excited about if you’re a fan of hockey in the city of Calgary, but Brodie’s continued high level of play is most certainly one of them. He’s on the books through next year on a team-friendly $2.125 million cap hit, and the Flames would be wise to sign him to a long-term extension sooner rather than later.

Chris Tanev, Vancouver Canucks: I write about the Vancouver Canucks on a daily basis, so I don’t want to spend too much time on this one, even though it probably warrants it. It’s tough to say it, considering how immersed I am in the city and its hockey, but Tanev’s story is one that probably isn’t all that well known outside of Vancouver.

Tanev started the season in a role very similar to the one he occupied a year ago under Alain Vigneault: he was a third-pairing defenseman and occassional penalty-killer. Tanev only played more than 17 minutes one time in the first five games of this season, and that was during a comfortable Canucks win over Calgary in the second of back-to-back games.

But Tanev's steadiness, situational awareness, and defensive reliability have clearly caught the attention of Vancouver's coaching staff, and his role has expanded enormously as this season has played itself out. Tanev's minutes have particularly spiked over the past two weeks as the young Canucks defenseman has played more than 20 minutes in six of Vancouver's past seven games (all of them victories).

Like Brodie, Tanev isn’t necessarily a high-event, flashy defenseman that’ll capture the imagination of the casual fan. In fact, he’s probably the exact opposite. He does a phenomenal job when it comes to shot suppression, he’s a great penalty killer, and he doesn’t take penalties himself. There’s significant value in all of that, especially from a guy whose job description reads “defense.”

If you’re not sold, keep in mind that there’s no way we could’ve put together an All-Hipster team without including someone from Vancouver. It hurts me even more than usual that Portland doesn’t have an NHL franchise. The possibilities could’ve been endless.

GOALTENDER

Steve Mason, Philadelphia Flyers: WHAT THE HECK PAUL HOLMGREN, GET OFF OF MY COMPUTER!!!

Anton Khudobin, Carolina Hurricanes: There's one goaltender on this list for a reason. Obviously, we know that someone like Tuukka Rask is very good at stopping pucks, while an Ondrej Pavelec is not … but beyond that, I feel like there’s a giant medley of guys ranging from slightly below average to slightly above average. There’s so much variance, and so much unpredictability.

With all of that said, Khudobin deserves love. Drafted by the Minnesota Wild as a seventh-rounder back in 2004, he has basically succeeded at every single level, which is saying something considering HockeyDB lists him as having played for 11 different teams in five different leagues (WHL, KHL, ECHL, AHL and NHL). It has taken him a while to get a legitimate look at the NHL level, having just seven career NHL starts to his name prior to last season.

But after Tim Thomas left the Bruins hanging, Khudobin was given an opportunity to back up Rask, and he didn’t let them down, posting a .920 save percentage in 14 appearances over the course of the lockout-shortened season. He went into the summer as an UFA and ultimately settled for a “prove it” one-year, $800,000 deal with the Carolina Hurricanes.

After bouncing back from an early-season injury, he has stepped in as the de facto No. 1 for the Canes with Cam Ward on the shelf. His line for the year reads seven wins in 11 games, a .934 save percentage and a 2.06 GAA. With teams like the New York Islanders being dragged down by horrendous goaltending despite a generally decent roster, it’s curious that Khudobin was able to arrive in Carolina under such a team-friendly contract. He has basically more than returned his value already, and given how mediocre/injury-prone the guy ahead of him is, the Canes should continue to ride him moving forward.

I don’t know what Khudobin’s future holds and/or where he’ll wind up playing after this season, but based on the past he’ll probably once again wind up being a total bargain for whoever takes a shot on him. Aside from Ryan Miller, I don’t see why he’s a worse bet than any of the 'tenders out there this summer. It'd be nice to see him wind up in a place that’ll give him 50-plus starts to see whether he’s more than just a career backup. I at least hope he’ll go to a place that’ll allow him to continue having fun on Instagram. God bless you, Anton.

(*) I included Zajac just so that I could go on a quick diatribe here to address a point of contention. Here’s the deal: Zajac will almost definitely never approach the 60-plus point mark he was at from 2008-10, when he played with Zach Parise and Jamie Langenbrunner. He’s on a 40-ish point pace so far this year, which on the surface seems unacceptable for a player that carries a $5.75 million cap hit with him for the next seven seasons. And unfortunately for him, that means he’ll be viewed as a disappointment by fans until the day he stops playing hockey.

This sucks for Zajac, because it’s not his fault that the New Jersey Devils overpaid to keep him around as players around him bolted for (literally) greener pastures. This season he’s logging a ton of minutes, and the top unit of himself, Jagr and Zubrus has been pretty darn dominant. The trio controls 56 percent of all 5v5 shot attempts, and nearly 65 percent of all goals that are scored — all of that when starting less than 50 percent of shifts in the offensive zone, against the best competition.

In an ideal world, Zajac would be making somewhere around $4 million per season as a tough-minute second center on a really good team, and everyone would be able to appreciate him for what he is. He’s not in that situation right now, and he’s not the type of player that Devils were led to believe he was once they locked him up … which is kind of ironic, since in a way he is the living embodiment of the Devils — he struggles scoring despite always having the puck on his stick. Given his pay stub, though, he should sleep OK, even though he has been miscast by his employer.